"So glad I caught some family here," he said, scattering sparkling sleet diamonds as he hung his coat on the rack just inside the door. "I've had a bad trip from St. Louis, an ill-advised one, my wife said. But I had to come. I've lost a grand old friend in Arch Bartlett's death. That man influenced my life as no other person did. I picked up a Poplar Bluff paper on a whim and there was his obituary with an old picture, looking just as he did when I knew him 30 years ago. I just had to get here tonight."

 

We gestured toward the chapel door, sensing his need to meet this moment alone. The clock was striking nine when he reappeared, carefully replacing a folded linen handkerchief in his pocket.

 

"Mr. Arty?" I ventured.

 

He cleared his throat and nodded.

"I'm Arch's niece. I took care of him. I don't remember that he ever spoke of you, though. How and when did you know him?"

 

Carl told us the touching story of the painfully timid, distressed little boy he had been 30 years ago, how finding a friend in Arch Bartlett changed his whole life.

 

"It was just mama and me, living like mice in a little old two-room house down the street from the Bartletts. I was so shy and scared that I walked around with my head hung down, afraid to talk or look anyone in the face. The other kids made fun of me, and of course there was the bully that chased me home every day, until Arch came out and took up for me one day.

 

"I just sat down on the curb and cried. Arch sat down beside me and didn't say anything. But pretty soon he picked up three little rocks and began to juggle them. I was fascinated. I actually began to look up and follow the flight and fall and interchanging arcs of those three little rocks. He asked me if I wanted to learn.

"He told me, 'You can learn how, easy. You got good hands and a good eye. And it's fun to be able to do something the other kids don't know how to do.'

 

"I had never heard that there was anything good about me, nor that I could do anything that other kids couldn't. That was the best news of my whole life! And it was right, too. Arch taught me and drilled me and added more and more items into my routine until I was really good.

 

"It wasn't long before I began to pick up rocks on the playground and work four or five of them into a pattern, and even the big kids would gather around and applaud and beg me to keep going. I liked it. And I came out of that helpless, hopeless world. Pretty soon the teacher was calling on me to exhibit at class parties, then for special entertainments and contests between classrooms.

 

"That act of kindness literally turned my life around. Arch gave me hope and confidence in myself, a skill and an edge over the other kids. When mama remarried, we moved to the city. Through school and law school I used juggling to earn extra money. Kid's birthday parties, social gatherings, a few night club gigs... you know. Truthfully, I never would have had the nerve to set my sights on law school without the self confidence I got from your uncle that year. He was my friend. He taught me to juggle."

 

Together we went back and looked again at the kindly face, serene on its satin pillow. And at the gnarled, arthritic hands that once were agile enough to teach a shy, defeated little boy a life-changing art.

 

Carl said how sorry he was that he'd never kept in touch, nor adequately thanked his mentor.

 

I said that his giving us that wonderful private anecdote to place in the repository of our memories of Arch Bartlett was thanks enough. That hearing it was a precious and poignant gift to us all. Isn't the sharing of a good memory the most welcome and sensitive gift that can be given to a family which has suffered the death of a loved one at Christmas time?